PRAGYA tokamak

PRAGYA^[1][2] refers to the newly developed Indian tokamak device. It is India's first privately developed low aspect ratio tokamak device designed by the Pranos Fusion Energy.^[3][4][5] It is a tiny tokamak device having a radius of just 0.4 m. It is described as a compact tokamak designed as a precursor to a larger device.^[6]

In the year 2026, the Bangalore based startup company Pranos Fusion in India, started working on nuclear fusion. The nuclear fusion is the same process that powers stars and the sun.^[4]

The startup company Pranos Fusion was founded by Dr Shaurya Kaushal, an Indian physicist based in the city of Bangalore in India. In an interview, he explained that the nuclear fusion is the way the universe powers itself, and almost every form of energy humans use today could be traced back to it in some way.^[4] The other co-founder of the company is Roshan George.^[7]

The fund for the development of the PRAGYA tokamak at Pranos Fusion was backed by the institutional investor Industrial47.^[8][9]

The company initially developed a software to compute an optimal tokamak, a type of a nuclear fusion reactor design. After that in June 2025, the company started building PRAGYA as a testbed reactor.^[10] In March 2026, the researchers associated with the company published a paper that "detailed the design and mechanical analysis of the PRAGYA's vacuum vessel".^[11] According to the company Pranos Fusion, it took approximately eight months to build the PRAGYA tokamak reactor.^[12] It was constructed by a team of 12 members. The team includes physicists, engineers and computational scientists working at the Innovation and Development Centre of the Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research (JNCASR).^[7]

The PRAGYA tokamak has been designed to serve as an experimental platform for studying and controlling plasma. The plasma is the superheated state of matter that is essential for achieving nuclear fusion in a reactor.^[12]

It is not to generate commercial fusion power but act as an important testing ground for technologies needed to build future fusion reactors in the country. The company has planned to operate the PRAGYA reactor for nearly two decades. It has aimed to conduct 3,000 tests annually, i.e, about 10 to 12 experimental tests on daily basis.^[12]

According to the physicists and the experts, the continuous experiments will provide a large amount of data, which will be useful in further improving fusion reactor technology in the future.^[13]

The primary objective of the PRAGYA tokamak is to study plasma physics for building commercial fusion reactor in the country. It has been built with the aim to first understand methods for controlling plasma, focusing on tokamak design, plasma control systems, and plasma testing techniques.^[13]

Similarly, the other objective is to do research on high-temperature superconducting magnets. These magnets are essential in controlling the plasma material. These magnets could prove useful for handling plasma in fusion machines.

The PRAGYA tokamak device contains several components. The major components are Plasma control, High-temperature superconducting magnets, Plasma diagnostics and other fusion systems, etc.^[14]